The House – An Initial Review

Sunday morning and time for a little reflection. We’ve been in our house for almost two months now and things are calming down as we settle in. There’s still way too many boxes in the garage and way too many things yet to find their proper place but it’s slowly beginning to feel like home. Last weekend Rae swapped the dining and living rooms around and that had a huge impact, seemed that things finally fell in to place; we even managed to settle on who sits where at our new bigger table.

So, what have we learnt and how is the place?

Downsides.

• The carpet. We thought we had chosen the perfect carpet for the house and family, but oh boy how wrong we were. It may manage to pass the Lego test but it shows up every single mark. We’ve already mentioned that in ten years we’ll probably replace it.
• Our bedroom. It’s a great bedroom, light, large and comfy with a fantastic ensuite but it’s in the wrong place. We’re at the front of the house and we hear every noise from the street; cars, people, cats it’s all there and we seem to live in a street of night owls. One party, only a couple of days after we moved in and the first night in our room, had us wondering if we’d made the right choice in moving. Since then it’s all been quiet on the party front but other noises and lights don’t help getting to sleep.
• Minor things – no power points in the entrance or hall way, no lights for the back yard, no tap within easy reach of the back yard, neighbour who won’t respond to fencing notices (which is major now, but a temporary annoyance), couple of structural things that needed fixing and no ADSL2+ ports on the local exchange. All liveable, but annoying.

• Space, so much space! I’m in the theatre room, Rae is in the bedroom (both on laptops, how sad), Phee is in her room and the young ones are napping. This still leaves the study, lounge and kitchen/dining empty! Coming from a house where everyone was on top of each other all the time this is pure joy.
• My office. Work to be done? Kids yelling? Shut the doors and I’m in my own world. It’s made a huge difference.
• The wonderful kitchen makes cooking a joy. No leaking benches, no ineffective range hood, plenty of pantry and storage space. It’s open to the living areas so family is around, you couldn’t ask for more.
• Walls. Walls that we can put our ‘stuff’ up on. It felt weird hammering in that first nail but we’re over it now and planning where all of our pictures, prints and photos will be going. Hopefully we’ll get some more up this afternoon, it’s amazing what a difference they make.
• Doors and Windows. One of the best things about this place has to be our back doors – three sliding glass panels that open right up and with the addition of flywire sliding doors we, the fresh air freaks, are in heaven. Then we have the huge windows in the theatre and lounge rooms for more light and air, it just makes you happy being able to have everything so open.

Things have gone pretty much how we thought they would, only exception being the theatre room isn’t quite the parent retreat we had hoped it would be. Kids seem to like playing in here although since Rae moved the rooms around that’s beginning to change. Rae still needs her arm chair for the bedroom so she can hide away with her book and PC and there’s a lot of work to be done outside. I have to remind myself this a long term project, a complete house and home ain’t gonna spring up in eight weeks.

It’s tough moving to a brand new estate after living in suburbs so close to the city for so long. I’m still getting use to the isolation and we’re working on ways to make sure it doesn’t become overwhelming. I’m slowly learning the local shops and roads, have made friends with one of the neighbours and even asked the guys next door to turn down the volume of their music, which from Mr-Avoid-Confrontation-At-All-Costs was nothing short of unbelievable, but this is my house, our home, and we deserve to live here happily.

Our short term aims are to get the garage cleared and get the back yard in some sort of shape, it’s a bit hard to see past that at the moment. Our ‘projects after moving’ money has all dried up, but it got us all we initially wanted so while we work on the short term we’ll be saving for the long term goals. It’s hard work but sitting here in my home with my family and realising how far we’ve come since the first place we lived in together I couldn’t be happier.